NewsISO 20022 structured addresses: the November 2026 deadline has moved to 2027. The delay buys time, not an exemption — now is the time to get started →
Senior independent consultant

Payment systems
& cash management

30 years at the core of banking payment infrastructures — ISO 20022, SWIFT, SEPA, ESMIG. European financial institutions and global corporate groups.

François Lemaire · Biotos
30
years expertise
4
continents
15+
institutions
ISO 20022 SWIFT CBPR+ SEPA / SCT Inst ESMIG T2 Payment Factory CGI-MP

A career at the heart of standards

From ISO 20022 standard-setting at ING to deployments at EIB and BGL BNP Paribas, each engagement has sharpened a rare expertise at the intersection of business and technology.

2025 – 2026
IT Business Analyst — Payments & Swift Tribe
BGL BNP Paribas · Luxembourg
CBPR+ migration, EBA Clearing (SCT, SDD, SCT Inst), ESMIG T2. Test plans, structured addresses, SWIFT Standards Release 2026, PSD2 API Luxhub.
2022 – 2024
IT Subject Matter Expert ISO 20022 – SWIFT
European Investment Bank · Luxembourg
Custom MT/MX mappings in Swift Translator for ESMIG T2 and SIC. Development coordination, test plans, production release.
2018 – 2021
Senior Professional Consultant
FIS Global
Quantum Payment Hub (Trax). Client projects: IKEA, Shell, Saudi Minfin, UCB. Custom configuration, end-to-end deployments.
2009 – 2017
Senior Consultant — Corporate Treasury
UTSIT
ArcelorMittal, Nexans (SWIFT onboarding), Veolia, Plastic Omnium — SEPA migration, European and US Payment Factory.
1998 – 2008
Product Manager Payments & Cash Management
ING Group
Represented ING at the creation of the ISO 20022 standard at SWIFT, EPC, Febelfin, NVB and ABBL. International Payment Factory.
1996 – 1997
Early career
Crédit Lyonnais · Citibank
Product management for savings and VISA/Mastercard. Quantitative foundations and risk analysis.

Areas of intervention

Full lifecycle expertise across payment projects — from standard to code, from scoping to production.

⚡
Payment standards
ISO 20022, SWIFT MT/MX, CBPR+, SEPA SCT/SDD/SCT Inst, ESMIG T2/TIPS. Co-chair CGI-MP at SWIFT (2016–2020).
🏗
Payment IS architecture
Payment Factory, payment hubs (Trax/Quantum), Swift Alliance Access, IBM MQ messaging, PSD2/JSON banking APIs.
🗺
Mapping & Migration
Design and development of custom MT/MX mappings. Impact analysis, migration plans, cross-system coordination.
📋
Business Analysis & PMO
IT requirements, functional specifications, test plan management, release coordination. Agile/SAFe.
🌎
International context
Assignments across Benelux, France, Switzerland. Banking (BNP, ING, EIB) and corporate clients (IKEA, Shell, ArcelorMittal, Nexans).
🤖
Innovation & prototyping
Creator of PAYLEM, an ISO 20022 multi-scheme sandbox (paylem.fr), and of VIGIA, an AI payment-supervision concept. SWIFT Innotribe gpi Industry Challenge finalist, 2017.
CGI-MP · SWIFT
Common Global Implementation – Market Practice. Member since 2010, co-chair 2016–2020. Working groups WG1 (Credit Transfer) and WG3 (Cash Management).
France Payments Forum
90 member companies and independent experts. Member since January 2025. Working on WERO, crypto-assets, instant payments, digital euro.

ISO 20022 Structured Addresses — a delay, not a reprieve

On 27 August 2026, Swift postponed the retirement of unstructured addresses in CBPR+ messages: they will be tolerated until at least November 2027, and the EPC followed suit for the SEPA schemes. The revised timeline is due by the end of 2026. The target itself has not moved — and nearly half of banks were not ready.

The real work is upstream
Client reference data, KYC, corporate channels: structuring addresses is first a data project, and it takes months.
2027 will be busier
The deferred package will land on top of changes already planned for 2027. Those who wait will carry both.
Hybrid is already accepted
Moving early means testing without pressure, hardening your flows and avoiding rejects on day one.
Assessment
Compliance audit of your MT/MX flows. Identification of unstructured fields, gap mapping, prioritised remediation plan.
Remediation
Transformation rule design, SWIFT Translator mapping validation, coordination with IT teams and CSM partners.
Go-live support
Test plans, UAT follow-up, release coordination. 100% remote engagement available — starting now.
Request an assessment → Available fully remote · Benelux, France, Switzerland

SWIFT Innotribe — gpi Industry Challenge 2017

Singapore, September 2017. Biotos was selected among the top 5 global fintechs chosen by SWIFT to co-create, with 30 gpi banks, innovative overlay services on the SWIFT gpi tracker — the platform that would redefine cross-border payments.

Top 5
global fintechs selected by SWIFT among international applications.
30
gpi banks involved in co-creating overlay services on the tracker.
2 yrs
ahead of the industry's massive adoption of real-time payment data.
Official SWIFT press release → Lattice80 · Singapore · Sibos 2017
Flagship product · Biotos
PAYLEM
ISO 20022 Payment Sandbox — paylem.fr

Born from 30 years of hands-on experience in payment engines, PAYLEM is a complete, operational ISO 20022 simulation platform — six schemes, double-entry accounting, real-time monitoring. Both a technical showcase and a banking training environment.

◆6 schemes: SDD CORE, SDD B2B, SCT, SCT Inst, T2/RTGS, SWIFT CBPR+
◆Central orchestrator — one inbound message triggers the full ISO 20022 chain
◆Double-entry accounting: D/C entries, NOSTRO/SUSPENSE accounts, general ledger
◆MT940 + camt.053 statements generated in parallel, mandates, R-transactions, EOD
◆EPC 2023 validation: D-1 deadlines, IBAN mod97, standard ISO namespaces
Discover PAYLEM → Open the sandbox
PAYLEM · Flow monitor — SDD CORE Outward
Creditor
PAYLEM Engine
CSM / STEP2
pain.008 5 ►
pacs.003 5 ►
◄ pacs.002 ACSC 5
◄ camt.054 5
◄ MT940 + camt.053 2
General ledger: D = C ✓ 20 entries · 5 collections ACSC
Concept · early draft · Biotos
VIGIA
AI supervision of banking payment systems

Inside a bank, a payment crosses a dozen layers: channels, order management, COBOL and Java engines, MQ/Camel middleware, API gateway, CSMs. VIGIA supervises the whole chain — its AI cross-references logs, JIRA tickets, source code and ISO 20022 standards to explain an incident in minutes rather than hours.

◆Live map of the chain: channels, engines, middleware, databases, CSMs (STEP2, T2, TIPS, SWIFT)
◆Incident detection and localisation: RJCT, NACK, timeouts, circuit-breakers
◆AI incident assistant: cross-analysis of logs, COBOL/Java code, rulebooks and history
◆Sourced diagnosis, suggested fix and pre-filled JIRA ticket
Explore the VIGIA concept → AI incident assistant
VIGIA · Incident assistant — INFRA-2891
Operator · 09:22
SWIFT and T2 payments are suspended. Is it ESMIG or the VPN?
VIGIA
Diagnosis: the API gateway circuit-breaker opened at 08:52 after 3 timeouts to the ESMIG:9443 endpoint.

Same signature as 4 past incidents — in 3 of 4, an expired TLS certificate on the VPN tunnel.

Action: check the certificate expiry, reference PAY-3744.
Sources: apigw-access.log · JIRA · incident base Diagnosed in 40 s

Let's talk

Available for consulting engagements, technical expertise, or a PAYLEM or VIGIA demonstration in your environment.

Benelux & Paris
Response within 24h · Confidential exchanges
Technical expertise
Payment architecture audit, ISO 20022 / CBPR+ compliance review, migration support
Project management
Business analysis, IT requirements, test plan management, release coordination
PAYLEM · Pilot
Pilot deployment in your environment — 3 months, defined scope, clear metrics